


Eye of the Beholder

by Nny



Series: Month 1: Quantity (tumblr fic) [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Body Swap, M/M, a little body dysmorphia, courtesy of Kate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 02:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1840825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek deals with how Stiles sees him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Beholder

"Oh, wow," Stiles says, stretching out languid against the sheets, gentle hiss of cotton. "Wow, this feels amazing, we should - we should really have sex." 

"No," Derek says flatly, and monosyllabic in this voice just sounds so wrong. 

"Then you're gonna want to - " he flicks his hand at the door, dismissive but still weighted heavy with the same things that're slowing his blinking, eyes half closed and dark against his skin. 

" _No_ ," Derek says, a little louder, a little  _panicked_ , because the flutter inside his chest feels fragile and awful and nothing like what he's used to. Everything feels thinner and sharper and breathless, like he's half an inch away from coming out of his skin. 

"Hey," Stiles says, slow and syrup-thick and soothing, "there's nothing to be ashamed of." He stretches and arches, weight on heels and shoulders, hand pushing up his shirt where it's sliding against his skin, and Derek hates what that looks like,  _hates_ his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the dry click as he swallows. 

"Stiles," he says, low and awful and transparent, exposed because he doesn't know these nuances enough to hide in them. 

Stiles rolls over, eyes opening, sharpening, focusing with a laser intensity that's entirely the wrong shade. 

"Hey," he says, damningly gentle, "hey, Derek," and that's enough to have him stumbling backwards, uncoordinated and uncomfortable and probably the best impression of normal he's done so far. 

"Don't," he snaps, shrill in a way his voice has never been, and Stiles raises familiar/unfamiliar hands and stands still, solid and grounded and heavy and wrong. 

"Seriously, Derek, what is it?" he asks, and Derek hates so much that that tone of gentle is new to him. How far he's been fucking this up. 

"I hate that that is what you see," he says. "I hate the way you look at me." 

"I see you," he says, frowning, the face better suited to it, and Derek chokes out a humorless laugh. 

"Yeah," he says, and Stiles shakes his head, impatient and sharp and suddenly  _him_ in a way he hasn't been. 

"No, Derek.  _Now_. Now, I see you." 

Derek blinks, looks down at himself, at  _Stiles_. "I don't understand." 

"That's because you're an idiot," Stiles says, grinning now, open and easy, and it's not an expression Derek's worn for years. It suits him. He didn't know. 

"I don't love you for your body," Stiles says. Derek sucks in a breath. Stiles has always said that word easily; in this voice it sounds unfamiliar, and that's another thing to feel a little sick about. "I don't," Stiles repeats. "I love your body because it's you. Do you even - if you could _see_ yourself right now." 

"I look good," he says, flat and uncompromising, because Stiles is beautiful, no matter what chains of reasonable words he constructs to deny it. It's a fact, solid and grounded and immutable, like trees. Like mountains. Like the sky. 

"You look like  _you_ ," Stiles says. "You look angry and a little scornful and bewildered with all this relationship talk, and you look like you've got your hurt tucked away in a pocket that's pressed in close to your heart, and you look like you're secretly making fun of the way I get all poetic when I love you, screw you," he says, half laughing, "I'm awesome, you love me." 

"I love you," Derek says, and in this voice, in this body, in this moment, it's the most honest he's been. 

**Author's Note:**

> yyyeah this is probably not worth posting but I like it


End file.
